FILM TITLE

Scoring The Manchurian Candidate in 1962 was the kind of
experience that composers dream of being a part of.

The director John Frankenheimer, the screenwriter George
Axelrod and the star Frank Sinatra all took pride in their
work, felt a responsibility to do justice to the book and were
excited about making a film that addressed the subjects of
brainwashing and political repression in a totally original way.

I was staying in a tiny hotel in downtown LA called the
Montecito, where all New Yorkers who worked in the theater
stayed whenever they came out to Hollywood for a few weeks
to make enough money doing a TV show or a film, so that they
could go back to New York and work in the theater until they
were broke again.

John Frankenheimer sent me copies of the film every day as
it was being edited and re-edited, and I ran the tiny reels on a
small crank machine called a movieola, watching over and over
to see and feel how each scene corresponded with the script,
which I had studied before I came out West.

When I arrived in LA to start work, Frankenheimer said to me:
"Just remember David, this is not a Chinese war movie. Mr
Sinatra and I chose you because we didn't want a hack with a
staff of ghostwriters to grind out the same old, same old."

"We need you to be creative", Frankenheimer added. I'm not sure
what I am doing from day to day and I'm not a musician, but this
is an incredible story and you can help it out musically. You'll see
as you see it being put together. The film will tell you what to do.

The film did tell me what to do, and I was able to do it because
no one interfered and I was allowed to do the best that I possibly
could do.

I was able to hire great jazz artists like tenor saxophone master
Harold Land, alto saxophonist and flutist Paul Horn, baritone
and bass baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz, who also played
contrabass clarinet and bass saxophone, legendary trumpeters
Joe Gordon and Carmell Jones, bass player Jimmy Bond and
trombonists Lou Blackburn and Dick Leith.

And, I was able to get some of the great Latin percussionists
and stellar classical chamber music and orchestral string players
chosen by our concert master Stanley Plummer, a renowned violin
soloist, and some exquisite trumpet solos played by Manny Klein.

I also had the rare opportunity to write solo passages in the
symphonic sections of the score for the Heckelphone, bass flute,
contrabass clarinet, harpsichord and bass saxophone, which are
seldom used, or even available, when writing a symphony or a
concerto.

We recorded the entire score in two days and in addition to
conducting and playing the piano, I shocked some of the studio
staff when I would jump off the podium or the piano bench,
whenever the great French hornist Vince de Rosa, had a few
measures rest and let me borrow his horn, to run to the nearest
microphone, improvise a solo on the spot (in Cantina Latina and
in Home Again 1952) and then return the horn to Vince in time for
him to play his written part again.

With all my experience playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel
Hampton, Charles Mingus, Mary Lou Williams and Kenny Dorham,
I had no problem trying to create new jazz compositions which
reflected the depth and sophistication of the music that was being
created in the early '50s, which was the era portrayed in the film.

I had been drafted into the US Army in August of 1952, when the
conflict in Korea was winding down, but because the Army was
finally officially integrated, many of the jam sessions that occurred
in the barracks, band rooms, dances and places which we would
seek out wherever we were stationed in order to play music, always
had musicians of all genres, races and styles playing together.

Latin and jazz players, beboppers and swing musicians joined with
Western swing and rhythm and blues players and singers.
Photo: Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra